15 Die in plane crash in Venezuela

Caracas, Agency
Fifteen people were killed and 36 others injured Monday when a passenger plane crashed on the approach to the airport in the eastern Venezuelan city of Ciudad Guayana, Transportation and Communications Minister Francisco Garces said Monday evening at a press conference.

The ATR-42 twin-engine turboprop was carrying 47 passengers and a crew of four, Bolivar state Gov. Francisco Rangel Gomez had initially said, noting that 14 people had died, 33 had been injured and 4 were missing.

The plane, operated by state-owned Conviasa airlines, crashed at 9:50 a.m., going down near one of the entrances to the giant Sidor steel complex, just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the airport in Ciudad Guayana.

It was thanks to the "immediate intervention" of state authorities, in particular Sidor employees, that 36 people were pulled from the wreckage alive and rushed to hospitals, Rangel said.

The two officials said that of the four crewmembers on board only one of the flight attendants had survived the crash, adding that six of the 15 bodies had not yet been definitively identified.

They also said that apparently there were no victims on the ground.

The plane was traveling to Ciudad Guayana from the offshore resort of Isla de Margarita.

While the cause of the accident is still under investigation, unofficial aviation sources said the pilot lost control of the aircraft and was trying to make an emergency landing in one of Sidor's parking lots.